As linen goods to be treated in the so-called linen supply service, for example, there are sheets, bedcovers, other various kinds of cloth, such as large and small towels, and clothing, such as gowns. Makers repeat the work of collecting, washing, and ironing these kinds of cloth from customers, and the transferring the cloth to the customers through a folding process. Cloth is fed into a process by a feeder. However, in an automated feeding process, if cloth is placed on a feeding conveyor, a specific portion is held by a member on a feeder side during conveyance, automatic unfolding is performed, and the unfolded cloth is fed onto a conveying conveyor from its leading end. Therefore, cloth can be brought into an unfolded state, and can be conveyed to, for example, an ironing process.
The automatic feeding method falls roughly into two kinds of methods. One method is a method of searching for one end or both ends of cloth and feeding the cloth, and the other method is a method of feeding one side of cloth into a conveying conveyor and searching for and automatically unfolding both ends of the cloth. The current mainstream is the former method, and the reason is because the stability and the quality in the latter method are low. However, according to the present inventor's researches, the former method is not necessarily absolutely advantageous, the latter method rather has room for improvement, and the prospect of excelling the former method through improvement is obtained. In addition, the latter method includes the invention of JP-A-10-5500.
By adopting the automatic feeding method, the operation efficiency per one worker can be improved, the amount of output per one feeding station can be increased, and the maximum capacity of a shaping part that brings cloth into a shaped state can be exhibited through feeding using a plurality of stations. In contrast, the balance between the amounts of supply from the feeding stations is not maintained, and the delay of feeding work becomes a problem. Although it is desirable to be able to increase the number of pieces of cloth that can be accumulated from the feeding station to the shaping part, there is no such margin with the present apparatuses. On the contrary, if the processes of respective parts that convey cloth and detect, unfold, and feed a trailing end are performed with reliability and at high speed, the total amount of treatment should also be able to be increased, and even if the cloth movement distances per one station (distances at which cloth is accumulated) are the same, the number of pieces of cloth that can be buffered should be able to be increased, and feeding work should be able to become smoother.